*LMNtal, a unifying language and tool
LMNtal (pronounced "elemental") is a programming and modeling language based on '''hierarchical graph rewriting'''. It was designed to be a substrate language of diverse computational models, especially those addressing concurrency, mobility and multiset rewriting, including (Colored) Petri Nets, Interaction Nets, the Pi-Calculus, Chemical Abstract Machines, Constraint Handling Rules, and Bigraphs. It features
-point-to-point ''links'' to represent connectivity,
-''membranes'' to represent hierarchy,
// -rule-based multiset rewriting,
// -locality of rewrite rules,
-dynamic migration of processes and rewrite rules, and
-graphical view of programs and computation (see Figure below).
// -uniform treatment of processes and data,
// -and so on.
The language has been fully implemented using Java and C. Various unique features have been integrated into ''LaViT'' ('''LMNtal Visual Tools'''; formerly called LMNtalEditor), an integrated development environment of LMNtal. LaViT comes with
- ''nondeterministic state-space search'',
- state-space visualizer,
- ''LTL model checker'' (using LMNtal as the modeling language), and
- graph visualizer.
**Model checking with LaViT
Model checking combined with state-space visualization demonstrates that LaViT is extremely useful for '''understanding''' as well as '''debugging''' your models and programs. LaViT can be and has been used to run and visualize diverse examples taken from the fields of model checking, concurrency and AI search.
// An implementation (a translator into intermediate code and
// a runtime system) running on a Java platform is available.
// It features
//-arithmetics,
//-modules,
//-nondeterministic execution (exhaustive search),
//-foreign-language interface to Java,
//-visualizer,
//-read-eval-print loop,
//-optimizer,
//-redex/rule selection strategies, and
//-libraries.
LMNtal allows extremely terse representation of some transition systems. For example, with only one rule, the state space of the Tower of Hanoi can be explored and visualized.
#ref(hanoi5.png,center,40%,around);
**Programming/modeling with links and membranes
The power of LMNtal comes from two structuring mechanisms, links and membranes. The figure below illustrates how hierarchical graphs allow you to represent various concepts appearing in computer science.
#ref(diagrams.png,center,20%,around);
// http://www.ueda.info.waseda.ac.jp/lmntal/image/diagrams-low.png
The language and the implementation has been developed since 2002 by
the LMNtal team, Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, Waseda University.
//**Sample Input 1
// a,a,a,a,a,a, (a,a :- {a}), ({$p,a},{$q} :- $p,$q)
//
//**Sample Input 2
//[[Download]] (append.lmn)
mailto: lmntal _AtSign_ ueda.info.waseda.ac.jp
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//#comment